My Marketing Strategy
Nicolette Lemmon, President & Founder
During these “extraordinary” times, it is easy to lose sight of the marketing strategy that you planned for 2010 back at the end of 2009. When the first quarter did not see a recovery by consumers, many management teams became concerned, cutting budgets even deeper.
The pressure of the down economy and weak loan demand, has lead to budget cuts which limit the ability of marketing to keep consistent lead generation running. And, knee-jerk requests from senior management to do short-term pushes creates a frenetic marketing department.
The solution to many marketers is to give in, sell out their strategic marketing plan and simply sigh, “fine, what is the offer and the rate you want to promote?”
Unfortunately, this leads to the very inconsistency that the strategic marketing plan is to eliminate! Consider these points:
- There is no magic bullet, but there is an ongoing need to be in front of your target markets to remind them to turn to your credit union when they are ready.
- The marketing you did last year set the foundation for today and what you’re doing today is setting the stage for capturing business next year. So, if it is too disjointed, or reactionary, it will impact future success because the foundation will not be consistent.
- The ability to track and review to past promotions will be lost with a lot of divergence from the established plan, so advise senior management that they need to stay with the plan if they want to best track results.
- If senior management continues to pressure for budget cuts yet has requests for promotions outside the plan, it’s important to remind them that disjointed promotions leave the same kind of impression on members. Disjointed marketing undermines the consistent brand message and confuses the value of doing business with the credit union.
Keep the faith in the marketing strategy that you had planned, thoughtfully determined based on solid decision making from tracking and research! Try not to sell out and watch for the shoulder shrug that indicates you are submitting against your better judgment!